Al's Frost Valley alumni blog: August '73 CITs

Saturday, August 2, 2008

August '73 CITs

I seem to be on an early 70s roll, so let me keep going for a bit. Below is a part of a photo reproduced in the 1973 camp yearbook of the August girls CITs. Top from left to right: the late Melanie Mackin, Lisa Ernst, Carole Wolff, and Linda Caplan. In the middle kneeling below: Melanie Brown (Halbe's niece). Lisa is now our Director of Development.

Frost Valley

is a place where good things happen when people pay attention to each other. There’s endless beauty here - the high meadows, blankets of evergreens, and pristine brook trails – and you can meet nature in all its forms. But more than that, it’s a place where our ties to friends and family are strengthened. When a community of people came to the Catskills to build Frost Valley, they had in mind a place where you can sit next to someone you think you know, and then really get to know them. It also happens to be where the everyday light and shadow is enough to inspire artists; where American fly-fishing was born; and where today, a quarter million acres of green forests still remain “forever wild.” At Frost Valley, where we are does have an effect on how we treat each other. Here, a family can relearn what “family style” means as they share a meal together. The rose-gray river stones in the hearths and chimneys around camp reflect the colors of nearby Biscuit Creek and pull you into the surroundings. If you need more reasons why it’s so special here, we encourage you to explore citizen science activities during every season. But you don’t have to, because you might have more fun just learning silly camp songs. And by the end of your stay, when you your family and newly found friends are composting like pros together, everyone becomes richer, including next year’s butterfly garden.

...and if I could transport myself

not just back to this place, but to a certain moment in my personal history here, it would perhaps be:

end of lunch on any July day in 1968, and Dave King (our camp director) walks to the center of the dining hall, without microphone, and without introduction of any kind begins to lead one of the 25 or so camp songs we sang in those days. He is the maestro, waving one arm to the rhythm we are to follow and with the other arm, at turns, directing us to sing quietly or loudly or pointing toward some one camper who isn't singing or (rarely) is talking. And it's "Young Folks Old Folks" or "Zum Gali Gali" or "Deep and Wide" and I look down to the end of the table at my counselor and he's singing too, no hesitation, not too old for this, totally entranced and I myself turn my gaze back toward Dave....

Okay, I ache for that. Not being young again, not quite. More like being momentarily again part of such harmony.

Al's Frost Valley alumni blog

Saturday, August 2, 2008

August '73 CITs

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